A Different New York
by Eines Zwei Drei
Summary: New York was different the second time around, the first time it had been home; everything had been familiar. Now he felt like a stranger and felt himself becoming more and more isolated from the people around him. He wasen't happy.
1. Default Chapter

New York was different the second time around, the first time it had been home; the streets, the allies, the people all had seem familiar. Now walking through the city he felt like an outsider. Now he felt like a stranger and felt himself becoming more and more isolated from the people around him. There was a feeling settling in his heart, he wasn't sure what it was, but it grew stronger everyday dragging him down, casting his eyes downward, pulling his mouth into a scowl, giving him horrible nightmares, he wasn't happy.

"Todd! Goddamnit get the hell up you're driving me to fucking work!" Keith screamed at a undistinguishable blue sleeping bag. The blue blob grunted.

"Todd!" Keith took aim and kicked him in what looked like the stomach.

"Motherfucker!!" Todd screamed rolling into the fetal position.

"Well get the hell up then!" Keith replied back, turning his back to Todd.

Jess rolled over in his sleeping bag, putting his hands over his ears, starring blankly at the cracked and water stained wall wishing he could be alone, wishing he could take their echoing voices out of his head. The door slammed as Keith and Todd left for work, leaving Jess curled up in his sleeping bag without a second glance. There was no friendship between them, it was five guys who were poor trying to survive on their own in a room the size of an average living room. They leaned on each other only when it suited them. Jess secretly hated them and knew they felt the same. He could feel his beeper vibrating on his hip, having slept in his jeans and t-shirt again last night, he didn't care, he didn't care about anything. He heaved himself out, took a quick swish at his t-shirt in attempt to dewrinkle it, ran his fingers through his hair, picked up his bag and left, he didn't look back. He thanked god he had his car everyday, it saved his life, it was a disaster, it made mysterious noises, it was cluttered with his belongings but he didn't care, it was his, in it he was him. He lit a smoke, and threw a CD on the player. It felt good to drive in New York city traffic, it unleashed primal instincts, it made you feel like a lion in the jungle. He drove over the bridge into Manhattan to the small side street firm he worked for. Joe, his boss was a good guy, gave him flexible hours, easy jobs, didn't care as he continued to slide further and further away, as long as his packages got delivered.

"Hey Jess!" Joe smiled widely his brown eyes sparkling, rubbing the large bald spot on his head.

"I got a ton of stuff for you today, Jason comped out on me today, so you'll have to do his today, I'll see if I can weasel you some overtime, July is really the perfect month for divorce! Divorce papers up the wazoo, heavy divorce papers that cost a hundred bucks a pop to go seven blocks. Have fun." He motioned to a stack of boxes, and large envelopes. Jess nodded, and started to load them in the front seat of his car. Jess slammed the door.

"You alright Jess?"

"Sure." He faked a smile and drove away. July may have been the month for divorce Jess thought but it was also the month for equator like heat, and construction. He got stuck for an hour trying to cross onto 43rd, he pulled out a soft cover from the back and vaguely watched the newly laid ash fault rise in black mists. His T-shirt was sticking to his back, his hair felt plastered onto his head, sweat was dripping and stinging in his eyes, as he finally pulled out, cranking the window down as far as it would go, lighting up a smoke with shaking hands.

It was nine hours later when he pulled up to Joe's again. Joe was sitting wearily at his desk, surrounded by dangerously stacked paperwork.

"Twenty eight confirms with certified signatures, three credit cards for amount paid, and seven confirmed subpoenas, I drove 168 miles today gas is at a buck thirty a gallon." Jess stated his voice quiet after having been silent and smoking in the car all day.

"I appreciate it Jess. Jack called in, he quit and packages have been piling in today I'm gonna need you early tomorrow." Jess looked at his watch, it was almost midnight, it would take him nearly an hour to get back over the bridge. He sighed.

"How early?"

"Seven."

"Can I park in you garage, I'll just sleep in my car." He could feel himself say the words, just like he felt his feet move, saw himself driving, heard himself yelling curses at cab drivers in Queens, it just felt like there was some machine inside him to keep him going, to keep him from dying, but he couldn't force himself to do any different.

"I've got an apartment downstairs, I never use, it's small its got a bed, a bathroom you can stay down there for the night if you want."

"Thanks Joe."

Joe raised his eyebrows and smiled "You're saving my ass kid, for you anything."

It was dark down in the apartment, the windows were dirty and facing into the ally, letting in no light, Jess liked it that way. He sat on the bed, blowing smoke up into the air, vaguely feeling a pain in his stomach that felt like hunger, vaguely remembering he hadn't eaten all day. It was all vague. It was a small room, a bed, a few empty hooks, a bureau, and a little table, it made him feel isolated from New York, he couldn't hear the sirens, the yelling of his roommates as they trudged in and out of his apartment at all hours to and from jobs illegal and legal. He fell asleep and slept sounder than he had since he had left Stars Hollow.

"Hope you are ready for a fun filled day, seven am, ninety degrees, forty nine packages, I'm gonna nickname name you FedEx. I'll talk to the hard asses and get you overtime and if they piss me off they can deliver their own packages, and you and me can rob the profits and take off." Jess starred at him glossy eyed with a cup of black coffee in this hands, wondering how anybody had so many words for seven am.

"I'll make a deal with you, no overtime if you let me rent that apartment down there."

"Why on Earth would you want that, its been empty for ages."

"Joe, I live in Queens in an apartment twice that size that I share with five other guys, that is a fucking dream down there."

Joe nodded his head. "You get all these delivered today you can have this month free, and we'll work something out."

Jess smiled, a real smile. "You got it."


	2. Chap 2

He dropped by his apartment, on the way back from delivering divorce papers to a woman who threatened him with a baseball bat as she cursed her soon to be ex-husband in Spanish. Two of the guys were sleeping, the others were out, he dumped his books, his rumpled ball of jeans, t-shirts and jackets, his notebooks and a mixed matched deck of cards in his sleeping bag, cleaned out his bottle of juice, peanut butter, apple, crackers and frosted flakes out of his respective shelves, left his key on the table and slammed the door on his way out. Fuck them, he didn't care if they were short on the rent, Todd and Pico were drug dealers they could afford it.

He finished at nine, he sat in front of the shop, with everything he owned in the world in his backseat, forty seven slips, from forty seven packages delivered over 201 miles of New York City, he blasted Anti-flag and ate his pizza the grease sliding down his hands feeling relived to be away from people, away from noise, of cars revving and horns honking.

"Did you hire someone?" Jess asked the door slamming behind him.

"Of course, some high school drop out who will probably sell the credit card numbers to bad people, who will steal packages, bad mouth old ladies, sympathize with felons and their subpoenas, but he has his own car, needs cash and I've signed him up with three quarters of the packages for tomorrow. I've got Rael doing the rest of 'em, you've got the day off tomorrow."

"See you on Wednesday then." Jess dragged his sleeping bag and his army bag down the stairs.

He closed the door and all he heard was silence, pure silence, as Joe's footsteps receded as he left, locking the door behind him. He hung up his jeans in the closet, folded his shirts in the bureau, stacked his books on the shelf of his bedside table, arranged his CD's next to his socks, and as a final afterthought arranged knickknacks he had found on the varied New York streets on this bed side table, a silver cross on a broken chain, a old fashioned cigarette case, a broken pocket watch that ticked slowly and calm, and a little plush tiger with dirty paws. He peeled off his sweaty t-shirt and kicked off his t-shirts and laid on the bed in his baggy jeans. He traced his veins with his fingers, surveying little cuts and nicks he had made himself in times of estranged despair, and manic boredom.

"Perfect." he muttered to himself. Even having a place to himself, that feeling in his heart still weighed down on him. He shut off the light and drifted into an uneasy sleep tossing and turning in the humid heat. It was the same dream, the dream he always woke up sweating to, with the smell of Jack Daniels in his nose, and a dirty taste in the back of his throat, the dream he had never told anybody, because it wasn't just a dream, it had happened many nights not so long ago. Some days it felt like the distant past of a bad dream, and some days it weighed on his mind, made him shift in his seat, break out in cold sweat, some days he worried about the night because he still felt 11 years old some nights.

He shook himself awake, running his hands down his arms, hugging himself, shaking the soaked hair out of his eyes.

"Fuck." He muttered padding towards the bathroom running his head under the cold tap. Standing up he saw himself in the mirror, water droplets dripping down his face, his hair long lankily past his ears, his eyes sunken and dark, his cheek bones gaunt in stark comparison. He pushed the sopping hair out of his eyes and turned away from the mirror. Afraid because he didn't recognize himself.

He left through the ally door, with a paperback in his back pocket, and his backpack over one shoulder he wasn't sure what he was looking for as he got in his car. Stopped at a red light drinking his burnt coffee and eating his stale donut, he said out loud. "I'm lonely." as if it had just occurred to him, when in reality he had known this since he had gotten on the bus to try to find his father.

He parked, and walked in. The bells clanged as he walked in, and a cheerful teenager blonde greeted him from the counter. He nodded, and walked around not sure what he was looking for. He ran his fingers across the cool tanks, stopping to look at the inhabitants of each one.

"Can I help you?" The blonde girl asked suddenly at his side.

Her presence spooked him, he tried to shake it off.

"I want that one." He said pointing to the wall of aquariums at a small fish off to the far end away from his school, starring stubbornly at his reflection in the glass.

"Are you sure, the others look more healthy."

"No, him."

Jess paid with his rent money he wouldn't be needing and left with a three gallon tank, five mismatched, unsocial small fish, and a little stone gazebo that looked strangely like a place he had once known in the middle of a small town square.

He watched them swim, watched them swish their little fins and swim through the gazebo, he put his hands on the glass and watched them smiling.

"I'm Jess."


	3. Chap 3

He began to feel further and further away from himself, away from other people, as the days went on. He found himself forgetting things, the addresses he had just looked at, the faces of people he worked with, starring at the green light and not going anywhere. The more he retreated within himself, the better he felt, the longer he could go without talking to somebody, making eye contact made him feel relieved.

"Jess?" Jess jerked around, his eyes on the floor.

"You okay?" Joe asked.

"I'm fine." he muttered without making eye contact. "Those mine?" He pointed to a stack.

"Yeah, not too many today."

Jess nodded.

The phone rang five times before he picked it up, sitting up on his bed with his book, he starred at it.

"Hello?" He asked quietly.

"Jess?" It was a male voice, friendly, happy, familiar.

"Yeah?"

"It's Luke."

"Hi."

"I'm going to be in the city for a couple of days next week I thought I'd pop up and see you."

"Pop up." Jess repeated.

"Yeah, I haven't seen you since your Mom's wedding, thought I could see what you were up to."

Liz and TJ's wedding seemed like such a long time ago in a misty memory.

"Okay. I've moved."

"I know you told me three weeks ago."

"oh."

"I've got the address, so what days are you working next week?"

"Uh." His mind was blank, he struggled to remember, hitting his palm against his forehead. "Monday, Thursday, uh, Friday and Saturday."

"Well how about Tuesday then?"

"Yeah."

"Alright Jess I'll see you later."

He hung up. His mouth barely forming the word, bye. He ran his hands up his bare arms, rubbing the cuts he had made, yesterday, the day before that. He went back to his book, submersing himself into other people, into other lives where life was easier, where life was more predictable, a life without fierce sadness, without meaningless packages everyday, without fathers that abandon you and later tell you they aren't the fathering type, without girls who are perfect that you leave anyway, without a crazy drunk mother with muscled boyfriends than snuck into your room at night reeking of whiskey and pot. He didn't like real life anymore.

Luke hadn't given a time on Tuesday, he woke at six with a start, sweat running down his face suddenly paranoid looking around and seeing imperfections, Luke was the closest thing he ever had to real unconditional love family and in that small place in his brain that he tried to hide when around people, he wanted it to be nice for him. To impress him, to stop him from worrying, because he knew he did. He rushed around picking things up, folding and refolding, his music on, getting lost in the foggy abyss of his mind. He had finally given up at 11 and sat himself on his bed with a book trying not to notice the little things. The door knocked, and he stood up consciously to answer it, tugging at the long sleeves of his T-shirt, running his fingers through his hair.

Luke was standing there, the same person he had always been, albeit missing his flannel today, standing on his stoop casting suspicious looks around the unfriendly dark ally with a piece of paper in his hands.

"Hey." Jess said shifting his weight.

Luke muttered something under his breath that sounded like "whoah." and tried to recover.

"Hey Jess. Nice ally I like the steel door it's a nice touch." He tried not to be taken aback as he starred at his nephew at his long stringy hair, the rings under his eyes, but perhaps most noticeable the amount of weight he had lost, he seemed to be swimming in his own skin, his broad shoulders lost on his body.

"Yeah." Months ago he would have returned some friendly sarcastic banter, but today he couldn't think of the words in his head.

"Well its certainly nicer than your other place, you've actually got a bed, lack of espectice, is that a bathroom I see over there? Moving up in the world." Jess nodded absently, his eyes glossy.

"How are you Jess?" He was visibly concerned, the changes in him bothering him.

"I'm good, good." for a moment he looked up at Luke and conveyed in a moment that everything was not good.

"Well that's good, wow you even have invited living creatures."

"I got lonely." He replied back, stooping down to look at his swimming fish. Luke stooped with him, both starring down at the fish, their faces reflected by the tank light.

"You want to go out and get something to eat?" Luke asked, wishing to get out of Jess' dark apartment hoping all the changes in Jess would dissipate with a change of scenery.

"Yeah, you got your truck?" Jess asked, his eyes still on the fish.

"Yes I do."

"We'll take my car." He offered no explanation, a statement.

They walked around the building. Luke looking around suspiciously.

"how did you find this place anyway?"

Jess shrugged his shoulders. He motioned to the sign above the door. "This is where I work."

'Oh." Jess' heap of a car sat in its parking space that had become his in an unspoken way.

"You never changed the plates." Luke observed looking at the familiar heap that he had kept hostage in his garage for so long.

"You think I want to have New York insurance? Admit that my job requires me to drive 150 miles a day? They would hang me and my car out to dry. The state of Connecticut thinks I still live in the state of Connecticut and I like it that way." For a second he smiled, looking up at Luke.

Luke got wearily into the passenger seat noting the ashtray full of cigarette butts, the backseat covered in tiny white slips of paper, random books, and left over garbage from varying fast food restaurants.

"What do you want?" Jess asked entering into the busy street of his side road, without appearing to even check the oncoming traffic.

Luke balked. "What?"

"To eat." Jess said as he nervously drummed his fingers on the steering wheel, unconsciously pushing up his sleeves to relieve the eighty degree heat baking off the road.

Luke was halfway between the word hamburger when he glanced over at Jess and noticed small razor sharp cuts dotted over his arms, in varying stages of healing.

He grabbed the arm closest to him at the wrist and jerked it over to him. Jess caught by surprised jerked the wheel, veering into traffic.

"Fuck Luke! What?" Luke still holding his wrist like a bloody glove.

"You really need to ask, what is wrong with you?" Jess jerked his arm back and pulled down his sleeves, his eyes boring on the road.

"I think it's a little late for that now."

Jess just starred ahead.

"I decide." He replied quietly. "What do you want to eat?"

Luke starred at him. "I want to talk about this. Your sudden collection of self-mutilation, and don't lie to me, you certainly didn't get those delivering packages!"

"A little too deep for paper cuts?" Jess asked bitterly, still starring ahead at the road, but driving too fast.

"Jesus Christ, Jess. What has happened to you?"

"What's happened to me?" He echoed in an airy voice.

"I was born to two people who never wanted me." He gave no more explanation, he didn't say a word, until he squealed his tires stopping back in his parking spot. He turned off the car and got out, slamming the door. Luke tried to catch him, chasing after him around the building. The steel door slammed with a whap! Luke pulled it open.

Jess was sitting silently on his bed. Luke ran down the few stairs and stood there breathless, more at the turn of events, than the physical activity.

"Jess?" He didn't even raise his head.

"Fine, listen, don't listen. This is a one time offer, come back to Stars Hollow with me. There is something wrong with you Jess, and if you don't get it fixed, you are going to fall deeper and deeper away from everybody. I promised I wouldn't let you drift, let me help you." Jess' eyes continued to stare at his shoes.

"Jess?" He didn't move.

"Fine, goodbye Jess." Luke dug in his pocket and pulled out his pocket-knife and threw it at Jess' feet.

The door slammed behind him, Jess picked up the pocket-knife and turned it over in his hand, ran his fingers over the engraving: William. He put it down gently on his bedside table, between the watch and the tiger. He got up, his shoes hitting the floor with a thud, he walked silently around the room. Wishing he could feel anything, the slightest twinge of sadness, the prick of anger, he wished he could, there was only one way he could feel anything anymore.


	4. Chap 4

There was blood dripping down his arm, by the time the phone rang. He jumped dropping the knife he had in his hand with a thunk, as it bounced on the cold floor. He looked at it.

"Hello?" He asked.

"Jess?" A female voice.

"I've been trying to get a hold of you, I left a few messages with Todd." Jess' mind flashed, it was Astoria, the brown haired girl, with the electric green eyes, he had met at a party. Jess could get lost in those eyes, he could forget everything, she had that power. He hadn't seen, or thought of her since he had returned from Stars Hollow. Meaningless sex was no longer on his agenda.

"I don't live there anymore."

"Is there somewhere we could meet, I want to talk to you."

"To me?" Jess asked, distracted.

"Yeah. We can meet anywhere." Her voice was shaking on the other line, she was trying to cover it up.

"You in Queens?"

"Yeah."

"How about the coffee shop on the corner, near your place." Jess' heart was beating at the thought of having to go see her, to see anybody. Deep down, Astoria still meant something to Jess, not like Rory ever did, but an affection, a mutual agreement for crappy times.

"Sure. About an hour?"

"Okay." Jess hung up the phone. He ran his still bleeding arm under the tap, smacked his hand on it, in attempt to stop the bleeding.

He cursed to himself quietly, lifting his hand up cautiously and staring at the print on his hand, his eyes followed the tiny ripples and swirls. He wiped his hand on his black pants and left slamming the door.

Astoria had clearly been sitting there for quite awhile, she had the paper spread out in front of her, a cup of coffee off to the side next to the small mountain of single serving sugar packets. Jess smiled briefly, she was beautiful, he just wished that he could truly feel something for her.

"Hey Jess." he noticed her eyes roaming over him, judging him. "Sit down." he did, rearranging her sugar mountain, drawing his finger through the left over granules on the table.

"Are you okay?" Her green eyes looked concerned.

"Are you?"

"Why don't we sit it at an equal no, on both sides." She finally said looking up at him.

"What is it?" Jess took a drink of Astoria's coffee and cringed at the sweetness, he placed down the cup next to her and smiled.

"Have I ever mentioned my parents to you?"

"Yeah." She had mentioned them one night, she had run away from home at fifteen, to escape them. To escape from bibles, and morals, church, and sins.

Jess' head was swimming as he drove back, he felt like his head was in a fog, he felt like he was floating above his body, not sure about the fledging amount of emotion running through his body at a rapid pace.

He slowed down, as he neared a backed up intersection, two cars were entangled together in the middle of the intersection, their owners out screaming at each other, sirens wailed in the distant. He came to a full stop. He didn't mind stopping, he didn't mind sitting, he had to think in his head. Then he heard a voice, that stopped all of his thoughts cold. All of this thoughts but one, the same thought that ran continuously through his head, that he could never stop. The thought that pushed him away from everybody. The man behind him was honking and hollering, shouting about his busy day. Jess pushed open his car door, and strode back to the car. Blood was pounding in his ears so fast, he couldn't even hear the sirens, or the shouting, or even his own breathing.

"You fucking bastard." Everything in his mind went blank then, as he opened the door to the blue pickup truck and wretched the man out of the car. Jess sprawled him out on the pavement, as all of his rage, anger and hate poured out of him, into this man. He couldn't stop hitting him. He didn't see the blood, he didn't feel the pain in his hands, the screams of the man beneath him. He could only feel his own hurt.

Luke was sitting in his apartment, trying desperately to figure out what had happened that morning with Jess, replying it in his head, and feeling guilty when the phone rang.

"Mr. Luke Danes?" Came the voice on the other end.

"This is he."

"Hello Mr. Danes, my name is Dr. Philip Robusk, and I'm a doctor at Bellevue psychiatric hospital and I am calling on behalf of your nephew Jess Mariano."

"Oh my god. He killed himself." Luke couldn't believe he had said the words out loud, he couldn't believe he had just walked out on him, he couldn't believe he had given him that knife.

"No he hasn't. Your nephew was arrested a few hours ago for beating a man nearly to death, he had to be heavily sedated and we now have him in the lockdown section of our hospital. We have been unable to pinpoint his medical history and your name was in his wallet."

"Beat a man to death? Why? Is he alright?"

"Is your nephew have any mental disorders, on any medication?"

"No, yes, I don't know. I just visited him this morning and he had all these cuts over his arms that he had made himself, and he had lost all this weight, he wasn't himself, he was a hollow shell of who he used to be.

Can I just come down there, can I see him? Make sure he's alright?"

"Yes that would actually be a good idea. However considering what time it is, it would probably best if you came tomorrow. The police will probably also have some questions for you at that time." Luke nodded mutely, as the doctor continued to talk on what time to arrive and directions.

"Alright, bye."

Luke hung up the phone and starred at it for a moment, then he looked over to Jess' bed, some of his left over books still sitting on the shelves.

"Oh my god." He took off at a run, and didn't stop until he reached Lorelai's door.

"Hey." She said opening the door.

"Hey." He was breathing hard and he wanted to do was fall into her arms and cry, but that wasn't the way it was between them.

"I fucked up."

"Welcome to the club honey." She replied rubbing his arm reasurredly.

"Jess was arrested today for trying to beat a man to death and is now heavily sedated at psychiatric hospital."

"Alright so maybe I can't beat that one."


	5. Chap 5

Please review if you like it (or even if you don't) Thanks!

* * *

Lorelai pulled him in close, standing in the shadow of her doorway, and for a moment, Jess, Liz, and Dr. Robusk flew out of his head, and for a minute life was perfect. Perfect can never last long, it's the way life is, and as they pulled away Luke felt his problems rush back at him with enough strength to knock him over. Driving to New York the next day he pondered over the things he could say, the things he would do. How he would react to Jess, he still hadn't mastered it by the time he pulled into the lot of Bellevue. Dr. Robusk was a middle aged slightly portly man, who smiled genuinely smiled as they shook hands. Luke couldn't help but wonder how working with mental patients for your entire professional career affected your mental status.  
  
"How's Jess?"  
  
"Why don't you come in?" He gestured into his office and Luke obediently followed him.  
  
"I briefly spoke with Jess this morning, and I asked him a few questions. One of the things I asked him was to describe the man he assaulted. Jess gave me a very vivid description, what he was wearing, his eye colour, even what he smelled like. The main problem was that the man he assaulted didn't have any of these characteristics. Have you ever heard of transference Mr. Danes?"  
  
"Call me Luke, no I haven't." Luke didn't like any of this, he didn't like the degrees on the wall, he didn't like the book titles he was reading on the doctors desk: Multiple Personalities and You, I'm okay you're okay, Mood tendencies of a sociopath. Luke tore his eyes away.  
  
"Well Luke, transference is when under heavy emotional stress, your subconscious will make a random person take on traits of a person that you have a large connection with. This condition often happens to a parent who has lost a child. Anything can trip this off, a smell, a voice, a location. However, the actual transference is not the main problem, it's the underlying emotional stress underneath. Now you mentioned that you visited Jess yesterday and he seemed unlike himself?"  
  
Luke thought for a moment, was it really only yesterday he had been to Jess?  
  
"He was living in this tiny dark apartment in the basement of where he works, and don't get me a wrong it's a step up from the place where he used to live. But here he's alone and I could tell he wasn't properly taking care of himself, he had lost a lot of weight--"  
  
"How much weight?" The doctor cut him off.  
  
"Probably at least 15 pounds. Then there was the cuts on his arms, the way he acted towards me. He was so shy, he stuttered, almost like he was afraid to be around me."  
  
The doctor made a few notes. "Just one more question and we can go see Jess and the police will probably have a few questions for you. Have you ever met a man named Derek, tall, bulky, with close cropped blond hair?"  
  
Luke had the word no, on his tongue when he remembered that man. "A few years back, Jess was probably about 12-13 I came up to visit him and his Mom, they were living in this dive, the paint peeling off the walls, bars on the window kind of dive. Her boyfriend at the time, his name was Derek, he was built like a football player, but he was menacing, the way he looked at me, he creeped me out. He was a drunk, the entire place smelled like Jack Daniels. This was the guy? This was the guy Jess transferred someone into?" Luke asked slightly confused Derek only a blur in his memory.  
  
"Do you remember how Jess acted around him?"  
  
"I saw Jess when I got there, we said hello and he disappeared and I didn't see him after that."  
  
He made a few more notes.  
  
Following Dr. Robusk down the locked ward made Luke nervous, the smell, the bars, the police officers. Jess' room was part way down the hall. The room itself was tiny, with barley enough room for the bed. Jess was asleep with one arm restrained to the bedpost with a heavy leather restraint.  
  
"Jess." The doctor said loudly.  
  
Jess stirred, turning his head from side to side.  
  
"Jess?" Luke asked. Jess opened his eyes, and looked over at him.  
  
"Hi." He sat up, pulling slightly at that the restraint.  
  
Jess felt groggy, he felt like his head was in a cloud, everything around him seemed foggy and far away. He rubbed his eyes with his left hand, but nothing got clearer.  
  
"What are you doing here?"  
  
"I came to see you, make sure you're okay."  
  
"Oh." Jess felt like he couldn't control his concentration, he found himself drifting off into space, starring at a blank spot on the wall.  
  
"We had to give him a large dose of sedatives last night and he's still a little groggy, if you would like you can stop by to visit him after your visit with the police officers."  
  
"Uh.. Sure." Luke couldn't stop looking at him. The dead way his eyes looked, the look of his scarred arms under fluorescent lights, the way his knuckles were bruised and swelled purple and black.  
  
The door shut and Jess was left alone. He shook his head trying to wake himself up. He couldn't keep a thought in his head. Luke walked down the hall with Jess' face still in his mind. Dr. Robusk dropped him off by two waiting policemen and continued on, disappearing around the corner.  
  
Jess starred up at the ceiling wishing, there was something he could do, somewhere he could go. Anything familiar, anything that he recognized. He longed for his apartment, the quiet, the slight mildew smell, the light of the fish tank, the tick tocking of his pocket watch, the feel of blood on his skin, the prick of a knife, real feeling. He lay on his back, thinking of these things, his mind fading in and out, slipping in and out of consciousness hardly aware of it.  
  
The door squeaked at it opened. All he saw was a huge shadow looming over him, turning, it was just Luke illuminated in the door.  
  
"Hi."  
  
"Hi." Jess felt more alert as he struggled to sit up.  
  
"I spoke to the police." Jess nodded absently, his eyes on the wall above Luke's head.   
  
"You'll be seeing the court appointed shrink later and they suspect that you'll be deemed not fit to stand trial by, I believe, _mental defect_ were the words used."  
  
"Mental defect." Jess echoed.  
  
"In which you'll probably be sentenced to a psychiatric facility until your better."  
  
Jess laughed cynically. "Better? I'll never be better. This is who I am."  
  
Luke could believe the words that were dripping with disdain were coming out of his nephews mouth.  
  
Luke could no longer hold in the questions he had. "Why did you do it?"  
  
Jess' eyes still were not on him. "Do what?"  
  
"You know what. Look at your hands, you beat him almost to death! Why?"  
  
Jess looked down at his hands, turning them in the light. He looked up and met Luke's eyes.  
  
"He deserved it. He deserved it for what he did to me." His voice was low, full of hurt and revenge.  
  
"What did he do to you?" Luke's head was alive with possibilities, none of which he wanted to be true.  
  
Jess said nothing. He picked at his arms, re-opening old wounds, feeling perhaps relief as he saw his own blood.  
  
"This isn't who you are Jess. You're sarcastic, smart, charming, perhaps even a little funny."  
  
Jess looked at him straight in the eyes. His black eyes starring almost emotionless at him.  
  
"I got sick of pretending." He replied flatly, flopping himself down on the bed, and trying his best to turn to the wall with his arm secured to the bedpost.  
  
Luke shook his head, confused, and sad.  
  
"Bye Jess. I'll come back soon." Luke paused at the door waiting for an answer.  
  
"Don't bother." Came the muffled reply.  
  
Luke let the heavy intuitional door slam behind him, as he walked down the hall the sound and voices pounding in his head.


	6. Chap 6

A/N- This is just a quick chapter, chapter 7 is already written and will probably be up tomarrow. I want to thank all the people who have left me a review, it means alot to me!

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Luke slammed the door of his truck, and sat there in the parking lot of the loony bin steaming. He wanted to punch something, he wanted to hit something and deep down he wanted it to be Jess. He had tried so hard, he had tried so hard to save him. It dawned on him now that he had failed, perhaps he would recover, and perhaps he wouldn't. But on this first section of Jess' life, he had failed. It wasn't Luke's fault that he knew for sure. It was his Mom, and his Dad, his mom's intrigues with the bottle, and drugs and unsavoury men. It was men like Derek who must have done something horrible to him, of which he could still not fathom, or perhaps he just didn't want to. When Jess, had come to Star's Hollow, he had probably been too far-gone even then, Luke tried to reason, tried to assure himself. His head was swimming to the point where it seemed pointless to remain treading water anymore. He put on his hat, turned on the radio and peeled out faster than his truck had ever done in a parking lot. He was on the expressway, almost to the bridge when he remembered Jess' fish. He remembered the look on Jess' face as he bent down to look at them, the reflection of his face in the lights muted glare. Luke parked by the front of the building, in Jess' parking spot. As he walked across the side of the building his mind suddenly reared, the large metal door, with the bolt lock on it. Luke mustered a grimace as he thought of his toolbox in his truck, oh the things he could do to a steel door on a bad day. But it wasn't necessary Luke noted as he reached the door. The knob turned in his hand, and the heavy door swung open, revealing Jess' life, left in a hurry. Luke stood in the middle of the room surveying. He turned his head; saw the knife dropped carelessly on the cement floor, the blood in the sink, his father's pocket-knife deposited carefully in his menagerie of odd items on his bedside table. His most recent paperback still open to the page, penciled letters scrawled in the margins, in a messy hand. Luke went over to the fish and noted that they were all living; he fed them and sat back down on Jess' bed. He looked around the room, suddenly caught a feeling of hopelessness in his chest. Starring down at the knife, with flecks of blood on it. He wondered what Jess felt inside, how a person could hurt so much inside that they need to carve themselves up on the outside. Luke knew hurt, he knew his Mom dying, his father wasting away to a sickness in which he refused to submit, he knew his sister leaving him to fend on his own, he knew Rachel leaving him, he knew Jess disappointing him. He recalled all the things he had ever felt on those occasions. It was a deep hurt, a normal hurt. A hurt that you could live through, a hurt that you could bury in your heart and mourn on your own, but solider on in real life. Jess' hurt was not like that, surveying the room Luke realized Jess' hurt had taken over his life. It ruled him, absolutely swayed him. He had his head in his hands, sitting in Jess' darkened room when the door opened. For the slightest moment, Luke was sure it would be Jess, a smile on his face, looking much as he did when he first met him, but it wasn't. The silhouette standing the doorway was a girl, probably 18 and clearly startled to see him there.

"Maybe I have the wrong place." She was looking down at the address she held in her hand. She stopped for a moment, looking at him, studying him.

"Are you Luke?" Her voice was questioning, but soft, kind, almost sweet.

She stepped down the two stairs, to meet him in the middle of the room. Luke noticed her green eyes, eyes that seemed to go on forever.

"That's me."

"Where's Jess?"

"Who are you?" Luke asked.

"I'm Astoria, a friend of Jess'."

Luke searched his memory, whether or not Jess had ever mentioned her. She looked at him and smiled, although her eyes were still downcast and cloudy.

"Don't worry; I'm sure he hasn't mentioned me to you. I'm not one of those friends that comes up in polite company." She seemed almost like Jess in a way, in the way she dressed, the way she carried herself in an almost cocky way, and sad.

"Oh." Was Luke's only manageable reply, but hell, he thought in hindsight Jess could have as many fuck buddies as he wanted.

"What are you doing here?" She asked sitting down on his bed.

Luke cleared his throat and motioned to the fish. "Jess was… Ah… Arrested yesterday so I'm taking his fish home with me."

Luke watched her expressions change. "Arrested?" She breathed heavy. "For what?"

"Assault."

"Oh my god. I mean I asked him if he was okay and he said yes, and I knew he meant no, but he didn't have the after I finishing meeting with you, I'm going to go kick the shit out of somebody because I'm fucked up vibe. Oh my god."

"You saw him yesterday?" Luke asked still trying to interpret the words that had rushed out of her mouth in a hurry.

"Yeah, just to talk, we met at a coffee shop near my place."

"The police think he's crazy." Luke stated, trying to keep his voice away from emotion.

"Why?" She leaned her head against the wall, and hugged her knees.

"The guy he was beating up, he thought it was somebody else, the doctor had some fancy term for it, transference. He has all these cuts on him that he had made himself."

Astoria pointed to the knife on the floor. "You mean that?"

"You know about that?"

"As long as I've known him, he's had those and they just kept getting worse."

Luke remained stoic, trying to put on his brave face, while discussing his nephew's mental condition with his whore friend.

"Why didn't you say something?"

"I'm not exactly the poster girl for mental sanity either. But after all that had happened in his life, I don't know I didn't have the guts too, he was hurting and that was the way he got it out."

They both looked around the room, avoiding each other for a moment.

"I'm gonna get out of here, and uh, don't tell Jess I was here okay?" In a moment, she was off his bed, and heading for the door. Still looking at him with her deep green eyes, questioning him, starring at him.

"Alright."

The door slammed leaving him alone again.


	7. Chap 7

This is my favorite chapter, I swapped a few things around though, this chapter is in first person from Jess' point of view, sorry about the change but I really wanted to get what Jess was feeling. Enjoy and review if you like it.

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I received 57 days, the minimum for attempted murder and assault and battery in the first degree. I suppose I should it be grateful, maybe its something in the way the judge looked at me, as my lawyer, discussed how I was crazy and incapable of controlling my actions. I felt like that man on the bench could see right through me. I think I felt guilty because I knew, in the back of my mind, that I was crazy, although crazy is a very loose term. But I knew that if I hadn't been pulled off I would have killed that man, and that was my choice, I chose to get out of the car, pull him out of his car and hit him as hard as I could over and over again. I lay awake at nights, wishing that it really had been Derek, imagining the look on his face as he recognized me and realized he was going to die all in the same thought. I'm still so angry, so hurt I guess. Now according to my lawyer I have 57 days to get back to a normal state of mental health, a term I find hard to understand, pretty sure I've never been at a normal state of mental health. I am the stuff juvenile delinquents are made of. Most of the people here figured it out. Although I still refuse to say it aloud, I probably never will. It makes it real, it makes it scary and it makes me feel sick to my stomach and dangerous. I hope that Luke doesn't find out, I don't want him to think I'm weak, I don't want him to think that I was incapable of fighting back. It seemed in those years all I did was fight, with boys at school who gave me a sideways look, with my mom screaming curses and horrible things I truly meant. But when I truly needed to fight I didn't, I just took it. At ten, I reasoned with myself maybe it was fear and confusion that stopped me, but at 14, I was a teenager, a jaded, angry, bitter teenager who had enough height and weight to throw around in a pinch. I didn't. I was scared shitless of him, I was scared of what he did to me, what he could say. I never wanted anybody to ever find out, so I just took it. The thought of it, still turns my stomach, contracts it in knots. I never tell my counsellor this. I can barely tell myself this. Life here is harder than I thought it would be. I take so many medications, there are sometimes I wake up in the morning wondering who I am, where I am, and why I feel such a horrid pain in the pit of my stomach. They moved me to a different ward when I was sentenced, a ward mostly with young men, my age and older. I hate them, despise them, and try to stay away. They have an underground circuit of drugs, that may take them away from this ward on a subconscious level, but I know they will never truly get out of here. I have higher hope than that. Most days I spend reading, or writing. Sitting by a window, or in my room, trying to make this place go away. Because as the sun shines, 57 days seems an eternity. Sometimes I'm allowed to go outside, but since I'm no ordinary crazy, I'm criminally crazy those visits are far and few in between. The air seems so sweet, the grass seems so soft, I just wish I could stay there, reading with my back against a tree, allowing myself to think that I was somewhere else, somewhere I was happy. I rarely sleep, I lay awake at nights, sitting by the window, thinking and dreaming. Most nights I lay awake, thinking. Sometimes I think of my family, sometimes I think of New York, sometimes I think of Stars Hollow, some days I think about Rory and some days I think of Astoria. Despite all the pills I take in the morning, all the hours I've spent with a young Korean man who asks me imprudent questions about my past, present and future. I still feel nothing, sometimes I feel so desperate, desperate enough to buy a homemade knife from my fellow crazies I hate so. But I never do. Instead, I lay awake at night, digging my fingernails in my skin, digging my teeth, just praying to break the skin. Scratching until I bleed and trying to hide it the next day. Luke comes to visit me sometimes and I think he has accepted it as common knowledge that once my time is up I'll come back with him, to Stars Hollow. Sometimes the thought makes me happy and sometimes the thought makes me break out in a cold sweat. I am confused most of the time.

"Jess." Ira was speaking to me, a tone of anger in his voice that I had faded out on him once again.

I looked up at him. "Ira."

"I hope you realize that you need my signature on your discharge papers, and if I don't sign them, you will go back to the judge and the next one may not be so lenient. You could get years here. Years Jess." The time seemed almost unfathomable, if 57 days could stretch out to eternity, what could years do?

"Years." I repeated. I had 21 days left, less than a month, I could see the end of my 57 days on the calendar, and the thought of more time made me near suicidal.

"So, what do I have to do, to get out of here?" My voice was flat, but a touch of desperate.

"You have to talk to me. Start interacting, start acting like you can survive out in the world."

"I can survive, I did for 19 years, it was no picnic, but I did it."

Ira nodded, patiently, a nod I'm sure he learned in college, in a how to deal with the criminally insane seminar.

"You did, but not well enough, when you came in here, you had over 50 self made scars on your body, some of which were so deep that they will never heal. You uncontrollably beat a man, thinking he was someone else. You lived alone in a basement, where you barely had to interact with anybody. That's not life, that's not surviving."

I could feel anger burning up in my chest. "It was my life! I couldn't do a damn thing about it; my Dad left me, and made it perfectly clear 19 years later, that he didn't give a damn about me. He never thought about me, the way I thought about him. My mom got so sick of me, that she shipped me off, because for most of my life she turned a blind eye to me. She picked drugs, booze and men over me. She didn't care because for four years she knew what Derek was doing to me, and she didn't say a fucking word because he supported her, paid her bills and bought enough booze to put her into a stupor." I sat down, not even remembering standing up.

"What did Derek do to you?" I slouched in my seat, angry with myself that I had let the door open to this.

Ira looked at me, through his frameless glasses, his mouth set evenly, not showing anything, simply waiting for my response.

"You know." I said barely audible.

"I want to hear you say it."

In that moment, I wanted to say it, I wanted to scream it from the rooftops, sick of keeping a secret that was ripping me up inside. I couldn't meet Ira's eyes.

"For four years my Mom's boyfriend snuck in my room and made me have sex with him." I could feel my lips moving, could hear my own voice in my ears, still unable to believe that I said. Also aware of a small weight lifting off my chest, just enough, to that I could breathe. I took in a deep breath, feeling like it was my first feeling of fresh air in my lungs for years.

Walking back to my room later, I almost felt guilty for saying it, felt ashamed. Now I knew it myself, that it had happened, but I also knew that it would never happen again.

Twenty-one days later I left that hospital, I walked out the door, breathed in the fresh air of autumn, my feet crunching on red leaves beneath my feet. I had a bag full of pills with detailed instruction, a number for my parole officer, a book filled with shrinks I didn't intend to call. I knew I wasn't better, but I also knew, that I could survive, maybe not just survive, but live. It was forty-eight blocks to my apartment and I walked them, the best I could. There was still a feeling in my chest, a feeling of hurt, of pain, of pure hatred. A want to see my own blood still rustled in my own head, but I felt better about it. Felt better about going to see Luke, about seeing Astoria, about seeing life.


	8. Chap 8

The door swung open showing him, yet again, his life. He knew Luke had been here, taken away his fish, cleaned up, and rummaged around, Jess discovered, removed every knife and relatively sharp item from the apartment albeit his father's pocket-knife, still sitting harmlessly between the tiger and the pocket watch. Jess picked it up and felt it in his hand, he snapped open the blade, starring at it for a moment, remembering how often he had longed to hold a knife, any knife, but now that it was in his hand, it felt stupid. He closed it, and put back own amongst the menagerie. His books lay stacked by the bed. Jess sat down beside them, ran his fingers up and down the spines. Glad to be home, glad to be free. He dug in his pocket and pulled out the pack of Lucky Strikes he had bought on his way home, he lit up and leaned back, against his bed, feeling free and feeling happy. He had a smile on his face, he couldn't reason why, and he couldn't remember a time in the last year, he'd felt like this. There was a timid knock on the door, in a flash his old insecurity was back, his heart pounding at who it could be. The door opened, revealing Astoria, strangely changed in a way that Jess couldn't put his finger on. He noticed her, her hair had grown out from the stylish layered cut to just brown hair that was tucked behind her ears, she was wearing a sweater and a jacket that looked oddly shaped on her. Had it really been so long, that he had truly forgotten what she looked like? As if to assure himself he looked up at her eyes, her characteristic eyes and they're they were, bright, endless and sad. Astoria.  
  
"Hey." She said smiling a little, crossing her arms across her chest.  
  
"Hey." He replied.  
  
"You're out."  
  
Jess nodded. "Just today."  
  
"I have to tell you something. Something important." Jess perked up, stubbing out his cigarette looking up at her from his spot on the floor.  
  
"I wanted to tell you when I met you for coffee that day, but I could tell that you were so fucked up, I didn't have the heart to lay anything on you, and then I found out what happened. I tried to write you letters, I even tried to visit you. It got to the point where I just wasn't going to tell you, was going to let happen what was going to happen. But I can't. I'm pregnant Jess."  
  
Jess stopped breathing; all he could hear was the sound of his own heart beating. He coughed, he swallowed hard.  
  
"Excuse me?"  
  
"I'm pregnant."  
  
He felt like his lungs were going to collapse in his chest that his heart might break out through the skin.  
  
"'Toria I just got out of the loony bin couldn't you have told me tomorrow?"  
  
She down beside him, rubbed his arm and held his hand. "I couldn't put it off anymore."  
  
He started to feel better, started to breathe normally again.  
  
"How far...along?" Jess started out, loosing steam and breaking his question off.  
  
"Five months, too late for an abortion."  
  
"No. No, I didn't mean it that way." He didn't, he honestly knew in his heart that it was his kid. That he would have to be there for that kid.  
  
"What are we going to do?"  
  
She squeezed his hand tighter. "That's why I'm here."  
  
"When you were gone, and I was... alone, I was feeling really down I guess I need someone to talk to. To reassure me, I guess. I called my Mom." Jess breathed in a deep sharp breath.  
  
"She reassured me, invited me over, until my Dad got home. Out came the bible, the priest came over. I can't escape them now; it's as if I'm 15 again. Jess, I'm 17, in the eyes of the law my parents own me, my parents are taking me to court, they are going to have my baby taken away, and they're going to put it up for adoption." Tears were rolling down her cheeks, her eyes glistening, her voice breaking. Her head was on his shoulder and he ran his fingers up and down her shoulder, touching her hair, trying his best to make her feel better, when in all honesty, he had no idea what he was doing. The words he was hearing seemed so far away seemed so confused.  
  
"What can I do?" He asked, anxious to end the moment.  
  
"Take him."  
  
"Huh?"  
  
"Our baby, my parents will give him to you if you disappear, and I sign some papers. At least I'll know he's safe!"  
  
"Our baby? How do I know Astoria, how do I know its mine?"  
  
"It's yours, there was no one else." There was a flash of something in her eyes as she looked at him, as if she wished there was someone else. As if she wished there was someone better she could lay her problems on. But there wasn't just the two of them and all they had in common was their sadness.  
  
Jess pulled away, violently.  
  
"No. No! No!" He pulled himself to his feet, retreating to the farthest wall.  
  
"Jesus Christ Astoria! I'm goddamn mentally unbalanced, I am not all there, I am heavily medicated, I have to call my probation officer and I cannot raise a kid!" She was crying again.  
  
"Yes you can."  
  
Jess reached into his bag and pulled out the bag that contained the four bottles of pills.  
  
"You don't believe me, read those labels. Those are fucking anti-psychotics and sedatives, I can't do it. I CAN'T DO IT!"  
  
In a second she was cold, standing on her feet, starring him down with hard eyes, still clutching his pills.  
  
"You going to be like your father Jess? You just going to let your kid go, not give a damn about him? Fine, fine, FINE!" She threw his pills back at him, the bottles hitting the floor, not satisfied she reached over and started grabbing his books and hurling them at him as fast as possible.  
  
"I hate you!" The next moment she was gone, the bottles rolled on the floor, the door still shuddered, book pages fluttered. In a moment he was alone, and crying. Tears rolled down his cheeks like they hadn't in years. He wouldn't become his father, he wouldn't, he tried to reason with himself. He could barley control what he was doing, barely control as he ran across the room, wretched open the door and ran after her, calling her name, as she struggled walking into the fall wind that not an hour ago and felt so refreshing to him, that just felt repressive.  
  
"'Toria wait." She kept walking, not even looking back.  
  
"Astoria wait!" He ran harder, trying to catch his breath, trying to make his mind work, trying to understand what was going on. He reached her and grabbed her shoulder harder than he had wanted.  
  
They stood face to face, the wind whistling in their ears, in that moment for Jess, time stopped as he looked into her eyes.  
  
"What?"  
  
"I don't want to be like my father." He replied breathlessly.  
  
It almost looked like a smile on her face. "But I don't know if I can't do it alone, you can't help me? You'll be 18 in five months, can you help me then?"  
  
She shook her head, tears running down her cheeks. "I can't."  
  
Jess ran his hands through his hair, and took and deep breath. "What do I need to do?" He rubbed his arms, cold in the fall air, still feeling the cuts under his fingers with the premonition he was making a huge mistake.  
  
"You just have to come to the court date."  
  
Jess walked home in a daze, his apartment was strewn with pills and books. At the moment he couldn't see himself wanting either, he felt so forlorn, and so alone.  
  
He dialled the numbers as quick as his shaking hands would move.  
  
"Luke? Can you come and get me?" There were pills, books and blood on the floor when he slammed the door to meet Luke's green truck. 


	9. Chap 9

Luke starred at his nephew as he closed his door and walked through the ally towards the street. His brown eyes looked wild, darting from side to side manically, his hair was wet and curly on his forehead. He looked miserable and scared out of his mind.

"Jess?" He asked questionably, getting out of his truck to meet him.

Jess nodded. "Yeah?"

"What's wrong?" Luke was getting sick of asking him that question.

Jess looked around, avoiding eye contact. "Uh, nothing."

Luke nodded absently, more trying to convince himself, then Jess. He couldn't help thinking, he looked no better than when he had went into the hospital.

They stood in an awkward silence for long moments.

"Let's get your stuff and we'll go."

"No!" Jess exclaimed with more emotion than Luke had heard in quite sometime, he was starring at Luke despairingly.

"No?"

"I'm-I'm ready now."

"You need your medication and stuff- your clothes, books, music."

Jess nodded, feeling his heart sinking, he didn't feel like telling Luke, he didn't feel like telling anybody because he secretly hoped in his heart that maybe somehow, it would just go away.

"Come on, we'll make it quick." Luke opened the door to find a war zone. A pill bottle was cracked on the floor, spilling blue pills across the floor, books were strewn around the room. Luke darted his eyes over and noticed his Father's pocket-knife was not where he had left it. Luke had left it there, as a test, he somehow hoped that it would be sitting there still.

"Jess! What in the hell happened."

Jess had been standing in the midst of his mess, his eyes on the floor, his hands deep in the pockets of his low rise jeans. He slowly looked up.

"Astoria came over."

"Astoria? You're telling me she made this mess?" Luke asked.

Jess nodded. "I think I may have helped." His voice was in a flat monotone, giving nothing away, or maybe he just didn't have anything, any emotion to give.

"How?"

"I was acting like my father."

Luke could not think of a literate response with the ideas floating around his head. Jess was scooping pills off the floor. Luke bent down and began picking up books, some of their covers creased and ripped, when he noticed two innocent blood spots in the floor. Blood that was still wet. Luke walked over to the bathroom and found exactly what he expected, his father's pocket-knife was sitting next to the soap.

"Damnit." Jess jumped dropping a handful of pills, and a pile of books with a thud.

"Huh?"

"Take off your jacket." It was an order, no ifs and or buts about it, Jess reasoned, but he didn't want to. He was sick of that look in Luke's eyes, the pity-confusion-anger look.

"No."

"You just got out, Ira told me you were on your way to getting better. He said you didn't make any cuts while you were in there. Are you asking for my help Jess? It wouldn't take much to put this knife back in the right place, I'm here Jess, I'm here to help you."

"I'm not asking for your help." He replied his voice cruel.

"But why then? What did you and Astoria argue about?"

Jess dumped the contents of his bedside table into his back with one swoop. He picked up the books and stuffed them in. He walked past Luke and without any abandon at all dropped the pocket-knife in his pocket.

"Let's go."

"No! We are not going! Tell me what the hell is going on?" Jess dropped his bags and walked up to Luke, starring him face to face. His brown eyes had ferocity, an unkind veracity to them.

"Astoria's pregnant. Her parents are religious fanatics and are making her give the kid up."

"Your kid?"

"Yes."

"Well, uh, you'll know its being, uh, taken care of." Luke's mouth was suddenly as dry as sandpaper as he tried to force those words out.

Jess chuckled bitterly. "She wants me to take.. Our kid."

Luke nearly choked on his own tongue. "Excuse me?"

"That's what I said, right around the time she started throwing things at me."  
"You can't take care of a kid, you can't even take care of yourself."

"I am well aware of that Luke! But she doesn't buy it."

"What are you going to do?"

Jess shrugged his shoulders. "Find a job, take my medication, call my parole officer and hope that I wake up someone different by November 8th." His voice was desperate and breaking, he was at the end of his rope.

"November 8th?"

"Astoria's parents are taking her to court that day and if I can't prove I can take care of him, than that's it."

Luke paused, and took a deep breath. "No! No! You have got to be fucking kidding me?"

"What do you want me to do? He's my kid, mine! I can't just let him grow up thinking his parents didn't want him."

"Take a good solid look at yourself Jess, this is what happens when crazy people raise kids."

"I'm not crazy." He said defensively.

"Funny, I didn't get the memo, because last time I checked, you were on medication, cutting yourself for no reason at all, and spending sixty days in a mental hospital because you beat the crap out of somebody you thought was someone else! You are crazy Jess, and you can't raise a kid."

Jess sunk down on the floor, his head in his hands.

"Do you think I want to be like this? You think I cut myself because I want to? I would give anything, anything, to wake up and not feel like this." Luke could hear him sniffing, his voice muffled, in his hands, he was crying.

"Jess? I'm sorry." Jess was unresponsive.

"Come on, let's go home."

He stood up with a look of hatred in his eyes, that Luke could not understand. The ride was silent, oppressively silent. Just as they were entering Hartford Luke cleared his throat, and looked over at Jess, who was hugging his body and starring out the window.

"Why do you do it then?" He asked quietly.

Jess starred, as if he haden't heard him, and Luke continued driving.

"It makes me feel better." He replied quietly.

"Better?" Luke asked not bothering to cover up the pure surprise in his voice.

"Yeah, and after awhile it turns to an addiction." Jess didn't look at him, he just spoke to his own reflection in the mirror.

"So you're not trying to kill yourself?" Luke asked.

Jess laughed, cynical and bitter.

"No. How could I?"

"I don't know it seems like you're heading in that direction."

"I've got someone out there, who needs me."

"So is this how you're going to be? Is this how you're going be in front of your kid? A disaster, a guy taking anti-psychotics and starring catatonically through life, you barley exist Jess."

He was quiet for a moment, he rubbed his hands together.

"Fuck!" He straightened out his legs and balled up his fists.

"Fuck Luke! How about you don't fucking tell me what I already know, this is not who I want to be, but I can't change it, but if you think I'm going to fall over, wallow in my own mistakes, and let my kid take the fall for it. You are fucking out of your mind." Luke looked over at his nephew and he knew that Jess had the violence and the anger to get out of control. Before he did not want to believe Jess had beaten up that man, he wanted to forget about it, but looking at him he knew, he was fully capable.

Luke sized him up, his rigid stance, starring unblinkingly ahead.

"What did Derek do to you?"

Jess sucked in a deep rattling breath, and made a huffing noise as it caught in his chest, Jess looked over at him with fear in his eyes, sweat was glistening on his forehead, his hands were shaking.

"Let me out, I'll walk." Was all he said.

Luke stopped the truck, and Jess hopped out and began walking away from the truck as fast as he could.

As he watched Jess' hunched and thin frame disappear around a corner, the sun on his back, he knew just what Derek had done to him. It scared the shit out of him.


	10. Chap 10

Silence creeps up on you at night, he reasoned, walked gingerly through the town square. He knew that if Luke awoke he would be worried and angry, but he couldn't stand the thick silence in the apartment anymore. He couldn't stand the thoughts whirling around his head, the utter panic, the blind worry. It had been three weeks since he had agreed to take care of, full time, alone, his kid. The thoughts had been growing and growing. They expanded in his mind like an airborne disease, all he could think of was money and his mental sanity, his anti-social ness and general uncommitment. Had he lost his mind? Yes. He thought, he had. But it was his responsibility and if he didn't step up and be a man, here and now, he never would. He sat down on the bridge, the light lapping of water and crickets soothing him. He was lighting a cigarette when he heard a creak on the wood board. He looked up sharply and began to get up, he didn't feel like talking to anyone.

He lifted his head to come eye to eye with Rory.

"I was just leaving."

Her mouth was open, speechless.

"What are you doing here?"

"I live here, now.. Again.. with Luke."

"I know that." She said matter of factly.

He shifted his weight, nervous, old demons still coming back to haunt him. He shrugged.

"I couldn't sleep, I came out here for a smoke. Shouldn't you be at Yale?"

"I came to do laundry."

They both starred at each other wordlessly.

Jess began to walk away, he could feel Rory hesitate as he walked by her.

"Jess?"

He turned around slowly.

"I'm sorry." For what he wanted to ask, he wondered how much she had gotten through the grapevine now that Luke and Lorelai were together. He wanted to run away, he wanted to spit in her face, he didn't want her to try to talk to him, he didn't want to hear her apologies and for what? For not loving him, for turning him down, for breaking his heart, for her sleeping with Dean, or did she just pity him, because he was a certifiable mental case that was taking too much to handle.

"Don't be."

He walked away, but didn't want to go back, to silence, to the never-ending impending night.

Somehow, he didn't know why, he found her at his side. It must be pity, he told himself.

"Why are you following me?"

Her eyes flashed, in sudden panic at having to answer a question she didn't know.

"I don't know." She admitted. "I guess I wanted to know you're okay."

He was silent. "Because I still care about you, I don't know why, but I do."

"No you don't."

She tried to protest, crossing her arms across her chest.

"You turned me down, and that's fine, I didn't deserve a second chance, but you stepped all over me, you couldn't say more than one word to me. Then you go and fuck around with Dean? He doesn't love you, you're just a trophy to him, a little ass on the side. I don't know what happened to you, you're not the girl I knew." He didn't even care that she had been fucking around with Dean, he had after all gotten a 17 year old girl pregnant, he was calling the kettle black. He just wanted a way to break her down, to unnerve her, to make her angry.

He picked up his pace, separating himself from her.

"You're not the boy I met, because people grow up and they change, and its looking like we've both changed for the worse, deal with it. We're different people. I don't know why I'm doing the things I've been doing recently."

He nodded his head absently.

"How much do you know?" He blurted out without a drop of caution, if he was going to talk to her, he had to know.

She bit her lower lip and starred at her shoes. "Most I think. You know, the breakdown beating a man in street thing, followed by the mandatory mental hospital, and the girlfriend-kid thing."

"It sounds like a bad soap opera. Don't you ever feel like you're living in a something corporate song?"

She looked at him questionably.

"I ruined someone's life."

She shook her head. "I'm sure you didn't."

"Maybe I didn't mean to, but I did."

Rory stood frozen in position unsure of what to say, unsure of what she was doing there.

Jess cleared his throat.

"She tried to find me for weeks, and when she really needed me, when she really needed someone to talk to, I was too fucked up to be there for her. So she called her Mom and for the rest of my life, I will regret that I sent her to the place she hated most. If I could have just talked to her, I don't know we could have worked something out." Jess wasn't talking to Rory, he was talking to himself, he had been needing to get the thoughts out of his head for weeks, Rory just happened to be there.

Rory sat down beside him.

"What would you have worked out?" There was disdain in her voice and he knew what she was thinking.

He looked over at her, the water reflection bouncing off her face. "I wouldn't have forced her to get an abortion."

Rory was silent.

"I don't believe in them, neither does she. It wasn't an option." Involuntary his mind drifted back, he was seventeen, his mother and him screaming at each other at the top of their lungs, over what? His drinking, her boyfriends, his staying out late, and her job. When she moved right into his face, and said to him, and he could still hear her words in his head clear as day.

"I sat in the clinic and when they called my name, I left. I wish I hadn't."

He had walked out, and when he returned the next morning, his stuff was in a bag.

"What's her name?" Rory's voice struck him out of his memory, he shook his head in an effort to clear it.

"Astoria."

They sat in silence for a long minutes.

"One day I think you and her will be glad you didn't."

He didn't say anything and without another word, she got up and walked away.

He headed back to Luke's, it was almost three, he had to be at work. He hated work, but he should just be glad they took him back, glad they gave him hours that he could present to a court.

He closed the door silently and snuck across the floor in his socks.

"Where did you go?" Luke's voice was clear and had clearly been awake for quite some time.

"I couldn't sleep, I went for a walk." He climbed into his bed and pretended like he was falling asleep and he knew that across the room Luke was pretending to do the same thing.


	11. Chap 11

As he stamped his punch card he was silently grateful for the job. Wal-mart. Filled with cheap atrocities made by small children, in third world countries, whose worker injustices almost tallied as high as its profits. Yet somehow, it comforted him, to be back in a place he knew. Back doing a job that was mindless and that he was good at. He was silently grateful that they hadn't asked him to refill in the application, when he had come to his old boss and explained that he was taking a break from college. They hadn't asked him to fill in the application that would ask if he was bondable, or if he was physically capable of operating heavy machinery. Because for the rest of his life on every other application he would have to let it be known, that he was technically an ex-convict of the mentally psychotic equation. And everyday he read as he popped his pills, right beside TAKE WITH FOOD, do not operate heavy machinery. He didn't care, he needed a job, he needed away from Luke.

8 hours on a forklift allowed him a lot of time to think. Mostly he thought about the state of his life, and the things he would do different, starting with Astoria, and cycling down to beating up random men, to moving into small basement apartments, to going to see his father in California, instead of graduating high school. Sometimes he thought about getting his GED, so he wouldn't have to work at Wal-mart forever. Sometimes he thought of nothing, he let his mind go blissfully blank, for hours on end, not comprehending the responsibilities he had, or the things he had to do.

Yet everyday he drove back to Stars Hollow, back to Luke, back to the late dinner rush, back to talking to people, back to being polite, back to being starred at, by the clientele of Stars Hollow. He knew he looked different to them, skinnier, gaunter, more sad, his voice was lower, his head not held as high, yet still he was regarded as that punk kid. The same punk kid who had youthfully chalked a dead body outline, who had gleefully knocked over the prize snowman, who had unbendingly left the town princess. But they simply didn't understand, he reasoned, they didn't understand that he didn't do anything youthfully, anything gleefully anymore. He felt like a shell most of the time.

He needed to wake up, he knew that, he needed to be alive, he needed to stop dragging himself through the day, and as he looked at the calendar that night, he realized he had three more days to do that. It was November the fifth. Three days from now, he would have to explain to a judge that he had two jobs, that he worked 55 hours a week, that he had 1854 in his bank account, and the support of his uncle, and somewhere permanent to stay. The thought of it made beads of sweat run down his forehead, made his heart palpitate and his hands shake. How could he possibly attempt to prove something he knew he wasn't ready for, but at the same time, how could he possibly let his kid, his own flesh and blood, go into a system where he would be made to believe his parents didn't want him, to believe that he was useless.

He reasoned this everyday. I can do this, he would mutter quietly to himself, everyday as he marked off another day on the calendar.

Luke was strangely quiet, they rarely spoke beyond the compulsory, 'good morning.' 'good night.' 'Orders up.' 'Have you taken your meds?' Luke watched him, he knew that. He went through Jess' pockets, smelled his clothes, inspected the bathroom for blood. But there was always nothing, perhaps a order sheet, or a candy wrapper in his pockets, his clothes smelled of nothing but fast food and cigarette smoke. William's pocket-knife was always in the same place, on the table besides Jess' bed, it hadn't moved, it was actually gathering dust, Luke noted.

"Did you take Wednesday off?" Luke asked as Jess walked away from the calendar.

"Of course." He nodded, he had taken it off three weeks ago.

"I've got Caesar opening the dinner that day." Jess nodded again. "We'll take the truck, probably wouldn't look that good to take your car."

"Good point."

Silence stretched over the room, as the both stood in the kitchen, awkwardly facing each other.

"Goodnight."

"'Night."

Jess felt like he had his eyes closed forever, yet he would open one eye and glance over at the clock and it had only been five minutes. He would turn, and start counting sheep, or try to think about the plot of his favourite books, but it would all come back to one thing. Astoria; pregnant and needing him. He would think about his kid, and even though he knew it was a responsibility he wasn't ready for, a responsibility that scared him shitless, it left a tore opened pain in his stomach to think of losing him forever into the system.

He wondered if Astoria lay awake under the watchful eye of the crucifix over her bed, he wondered how she was feeling now. He looked again at the clock; 3:16am, in less than twelve hours he will have drove into the city, parked at the courts, seen Astoria, seen her parents, seen a judge, and it will have all been decided. He would be driving back to Stars Hollow in twelve hours, either feeling alone, and sad, or feeling frightened and needing to buy baby clothes. It had been one of the longest nights of his life, and there was still hours to go before the sun rose.

He crept downstairs at 5, and made coffee. He starred out the dark windows of the dinner, into the abandoned square. Luke came down at 5:30, and poured a cup from a half empty pot, and looked over at Jess standing by the window, his hair tousled, and his eyes wide.

"Morning Jess."

He nodded and grunted.

"Big day."

"Yup."

"You doing okay?"

He shrugged. "Sure."

They arrived in the city by 10:30. Jess started out the window, amongst the familiar snare of angry traffic, he knew every corner, every street. He had delivered packages to what felt like half the city. He had baked in the summer heat, but now the city was cold. He shivered.

As Luke pulled into a parking spot, he hesitated and looked at Jess.

"You okay? Because we don't have to do this."

"I have to do this." He said in a calm, strong voice, a voice Luke hadn't heard in months. He got out of the car, and walked towards the door, he wasn't hunched over, he wasn't shuffling, he was walking tall, and Luke knew that it must be taking all of his power to do that.

The elevator stopped at family court, it's wood panelled halls were almost empty, except for the clicking of hells of a heavy set middle aged woman as she paced, back and forth, and that of her pregnant daughter as she cried softly. Jess slowly made his way over to them, using all of his self resolve to keep on going, to be strong. Astoria stood up when she saw him. She was big, 8 months pregnant, her hair had grown out, and her electric green eyes were sad.

"Hi Jess." She said softly.

"Hi 'Toria."


End file.
